“Are you okay?” Meredith asked, her expression sympathetic. She remembered being a teenager. The guy was always way more enthusiastic than she had been.
“Yeah.” She nodded and glanced over at Charity. “But you were right, it does change things.”
“Did it change things for the better at least?”
“Yes and no. Now, I think he’s more attached than I am,” she hurried to explain her statement. “I think he feels much closer to me than I feel to him, because there’s still a part of him that won’t let me in. He purposely keeps me at a distance in some aspects of his life; I don’t know what I can do to break that wall.”
Charity bit her bottom lip. “Dalton and I come from the same side of the tracks, and while I don’t discount what you and Drew went through before your mom was with Liam, let’s just say I know Dalton hasn’t had an easy time of it. For a while his mom worked with mine.”
That was a bombshell and a half. “He always talks like she’s gone.”
Meredith also knew some things about this family and struggled to know just what she should tell the young girl. “For all intents and purposes, she is gone. His dad too. Neither one of them were fit to raise kids.”
“How do you know?” Mandy asked. It wasn’t odd that Meredith had the inside scoop, but she definitely wanted to know how she did.
“It was a story when I worked at the TV station.”
That didn’t mean good things. “Like they were arrested or something?”
“They lost custody of Dalton and Deacon. Their uncle got custody of them after a few months, but you should know as well as I do that money has always been tight for their uncle. He’s taken care of them the best way he knows how, and I think no matter how badly they’ve struggled, they still have a better life with him than they would have with their parents.”
That was saying something, Mandy realized as she thought back to the trailer. Dalton and Deacon had lived in that place with their uncle when they had nowhere to go. While it had obviously provided them with shelter, she had to wonder how badly off they had been to use it as a home base. “I wish he’d let me in and let me know how he feels.”
“One day he will,” Charity told her from where she sat. “I know he will, because he’s a lot like Drew. I wondered if Drew would ever talk to me about something important. Now he tells me everything.” She rolled her eyes slightly. “Some stuff, I don’t even want to hear, but he treats me like an equal. At some point, you and Dalton will get there.”
Meredith agreed. “For kids who have been hurt by their parents or not even had parents,” she thought back to her own husband and how hard he had been to read at first, “they have walls built up for defense mechanisms. The longer you stay and the longer you prove you’re trustworthy, the more he’ll trust you. Believe it or not, Tyler was not an open book when we first started dating.”
“Yeah.” Charity giggled. “But Tyler’s fine, and that’s enough to forgive a lot.”
“Charity.” Mandy smacked her friend on the arm as she too giggled.
“That’s okay, I’m very well aware of the fact that women look at him, and some men too. I’d be stupid not to, but I know exactly where he comes home every night.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and Meredith leaned forward, grabbing a bowl of popcorn off of the coffee table. She wanted to keep the two talking because she was interested in their lives, and neither one of them offered any feelings to her anymore. “So what are your plans after graduation?”
“I’ve got a full scholarship to Duke,” Charity told them. The smile on her face didn’t quite reach her eyes, and the excitement wasn’t all there.
“That’s an amazing accomplishment. Why are you not more excited about it?”
She ran a hand through her hair and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m leaving my friends, my mom, and Drew. It’s mostly Drew. I’m going to be gone for years. Who’s to say he won’t find someone else?”
“Who’s to say you won’t?” Mandy countered.
“No, I know that if Drew will have me, we’ll find each other later in life. He’s been so understanding about this whole process, and it kills me.”
“He loves you,” Meredith mumbled around a mouth full of popcorn. “He’s young, but he knows how he feels. There’s nothing that says love like letting someone go so they can make their dreams come true. He’ll be here when you get back.”
“I don’t know, I worry about it. I’ve even thought that maybe I should give up the scholarship,” she admitted softly.
“Don’t you dare.” Mandy’s eyes were fierce as she looked at her friend. “You’ve worked your ass off, don’t give this up. We’ll all be here waiting for you when you come back.”
Uncomfortable with all the attention on her, Charity deflected. “So what are your plans after graduation?”
“Either the four-year or the vo-tech college. I have offers at both. I’d kinda like to get into the business side of things so I can help Roni out at the shop,” she explained. “I figure that’s kind of transferable anywhere. I could do anything from secretarial work to bookkeeping and managing. All good skills to have. I’m undecided on whether I want the bachelor’s or not.”
Meredith opened her mouth to respond when they heard a loud crash on the front porch. They all jump, startled. It was Charity who smiled first and then got up to go answer the door. “I swear, the guys think it’s funny to scare us. What asses—” Her voice cut off as she swung the door open and came face to face with a woman who had a crazy look in her eyes.
From her position on the couch, Meredith sighed. She’d known something like this would happen, and she’d known that it’d happen on a night like tonight. “Hello, Stephanie.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mandy got up from her seat and went to stand in front of Meredith. She wasn’t carrying a child, and she realized that at certain times in her life, she had been meek, but one thing she did know how to do was take care of herself. She realized that between the three adults in the house, she probably had the most experience, even though Meredith was older and Charity was the daughter of a stripper.
Looking back at the two of them, Charity wondered what she should do. Stephanie took advantage of the mistake, and pushed herself through the door, locking it before she took stock of the scene in front of her.
“Doesn’t this look cozy?” she asked, pulling a gun out of her handbag.
Meredith gasped as she saw the gun. A million thoughts ran through her head, and she wished with everything she had that Tyler would come home. Maybe he would realize that something was wrong, maybe he would feel it. It wouldn’t be the first time he had known. She wondered if Travis was in his cave; she hoped he was seeing all of this go down, prayed that he wasn’t taking a bathroom break. “Please don’t hurt them. They’re only trying to help,” she pleaded with Stephanie.
“The way you hurt me by taking away my niece? Did you even know she’s my niece? Were you even smart enough to figure it out? She’s the only thing I have to remember my sister by. It seems only fair that I make you live the way I’ve been living.”
Meredith wondered where and how the other woman had been living. She didn’t look good at all, and that didn’t sit well in the pit of her stomach. Worry was eating at her, as she wondered just how in the hell they were going to get out of the predicament they’d found themselves placed in. She placed her hand over her eight-month pregnant stomach and prayed silently that this would all be okay. She’d almost made it to the finish line.
At the worst possible moment, Addie ambled out of the room and stepped in between the two groups. “Momma.” She reached up to Meredith, wanting to be picked up, even though she knew her momma was off limits right now.
Mandy wanted to get the little girl out of harm’s way and quickly reached in, intercepting the toddler. “C’mon, you may need a diaper change.” She made a big show of sniffing and quickly walking her to her room. Stephanie didn’
t need to know that they were all trying to potty train Addie. They didn’t need the distraction of the child in the room. She hated to leave Meredith and Charity there in potential danger, but she had to get hold of help.
Outside the door, she could hear Charity trying to talk the crazy lady down, and she could see her friend placing herself in between Meredith and the gun. That made her nervous, but she knew that if it had been her out there, she would have done the same thing. Her hands shook as she placed a call to Drew—when he answered, she didn’t hesitate.
“I need you to listen and don’t ask questions. There’s a woman with a gun at Meredith and Tyler’s. I’ve got Addie in one room; Meredith and Charity are in the other. We need help and we need it now. She’s shaky, and I don’t know for how long the two of us can hold her off Mer.”
She hung up just as quickly as she had made the call and hoped like hell that Drew had understood everything she’d said and that help would be on the way.
Dalton glimpsed the look on his friend’s face, and immediately he was worried. Drew didn’t get bent out of shape about much, and the look he wore right now said that things were not right. “What happened?”
“Someone’s at Meredith and Tyler’s, and they’re holding the girls at gun point. We gotta call Tyler, and we gotta get out there. They need us, and we might be able to help them,” Drew told him quickly. His heart beat a million miles a second as he thought about his sister and girlfriend in danger. They were supposed to be there in case Meredith went into early-term labor, not in case someone came to hold them at gunpoint. It was a sleepover for fuck’s sake.
Dalton was confused about how they could help them. Up against a gun, they were nothing special. Sure they’d kicked ass on the football field, but against a bullet, all they could do was take it. “I don’t know what you think we’re gonna do against a gun.”
Drew wasn’t waiting to answer the question; he was already on the phone, talking to his dad. He ran through the house, grabbing a key as he did, before he hung up the phone and made his way to a locker in the garage. “What I’m about to show you, you have to promise you’ll never tell to anyone.”
“Haven’t we made it further than that in our friendship?” Dalton asked, offended that Drew thought he would run his mouth. They’d been through much more than even brothers sometimes went through, and for him to question it at this juncture in the game flat-out pissed Dalton off.
“We have, but this is club stuff. This is stuff my mom doesn’t want me to know about, but Dad knows that he won’t always be around to protect us. He showed me this; so that I could use it if I ever needed to, and tonight, I think I’m gonna have to.” It felt like such a grown-up decision, to decide that this was the time to use the things he’d been taught, but he knew that there was no better time than the present. Lives counted on this.
Dalton watched with wide eyes as Drew popped the lock on the locker and then opened it, revealing a cache of guns that would make any redneck jealous. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” He smiled grimly at his friend. “Get what you want, but make sure it can be concealed. Then we’re headin’ out to Tyler’s. Dad and the boys are gonna try to meet us, but if we get there first, we need to figure out what we’re up against. I have a feelin’ this chick didn’t plan to do this on her own.”
He and Dalton armed themselves to the teeth, even putting on bulletproof vests, just in case. Whatever they would find, they would find, and he hoped like hell that they could make it in time.
“Are you done changing her yet?” Stephanie yelled towards Addie’s bedroom.
Mandy quickly put on a fresh diaper, trying to calm the child down. She didn’t necessarily like diapers any longer, and she could sense that something wasn’t right. It was causing her to squirm, and she began to whine, very close to pitching a fit. “We’ll be out in just a second.” She thought fast. “I had to change her clothes too.”
Putting a new pair of pants on Addie, she proceeded to turn the lamp on beside the window, hoping that it would beckon Drew to this room. As she left and shut the door, she prayed that this would work, that they would get out of the mess they had found themselves in. Hopefully Drew would be smart enough to know that since she’d been in there with Addie, it could be a way he and Dalton could come through.
“Set her down and sit with the other two over here on the couch.” Stephanie motioned with the gun, refusing to take her hand off of it.
“There’s no reason to keep them involved in this,” Meredith told the other woman. “I’m what you’re after.”
A smarmy smile covered Stephanie’s face as she gazed at Meredith’s round stomach. Her eyes were bright. “No, Addalynn is what I’m after; you’re just in my way.”
Meredith knew she had to keep her talking. If she could keep her talking, then maybe they all had a chance to make it out of this alive. It was obvious the woman was on something, the way she kept looking around and the nervous ticks she was exhibiting. How did they work that to their advantage? “We looked for relatives. We looked for almost a year, and no one came forward. Where were you?”
Stephanie laughed, but it didn’t reach her throat. “My sister wasn’t the only one with a problem. That’s why I need Addalynn—she has the family gene—addiction runs rampant in our family. She needs to be around people who can deal with that, people who can show her how to live in society when you aren’t perfect.”
The words didn’t make sense even to Mandy. To get Stephanie’s attention off Meredith, she spoke. “Then why shouldn’t she be around people who can? Neither Mer nor her husband are addicted to anything. Wouldn’t it make sense that she be completely out of that environment to begin with?”
“Shut up,” Stephanie yelled at her.
“Why? Because I’m making sense?” Mandy taunted her more.
“Because you know nothing about this situation.”
“But I do.” Mandy got up from the couch and went to get in Stephanie’s face. She’d pissed her off, coming into Tyler and Meredith’s home and threatening to wreck everything that the two of them had worked so hard for. There were not two other people in the world who deserved to be happy more than they did, and Mandy was old enough to know that she wouldn’t stand for it to happen now. “I know that Addie loves her family, she knows who her mom and dad are, and she knows the people that love her. They are good people who put family first. They sure as hell aren’t a crack whore like you.”
Outside the house, Dalton and Drew were trying to get inside, along with Tyler and Liam, who had turned around immediately and come home. They’d taken care of two guys who had set up shop at the beginning of the driveway, and now they were working to get into Addie’s bedroom.
“My daughter is going to get herself killed,” Liam worried as he jimmied the lock he’d placed on the window himself during Tyler’s remodel and loosened the frame so that he could break the seal.
“If this lady doesn’t kill her, I’m going to,” Dalton said, running an agitated hand through his hair. “For scaring the shit out of me.”
“When we get in here,” Tyler’s voice was quietly venomous. It had been a very long time since he’d let the darkness envelope him, but as soon as he’d heard the message from Drew, the darkness had done just that. “This bitch is mine, and when we get done, you’re giving me that free shot.” Tyler glanced at Liam. Meredith was never in danger, his ass.
Chapter Thirty
“You need to shut your mouth,” Stephanie told Mandy, holding the gun tighter in her hand. “Or you’re going to find out what else I’m good at.”
Mandy knew she was playing with fire and honestly didn’t know how far she should try and play the game. From behind her, she heard Addie’s room door open and took the chance to look. Standing there like an oasis in the middle of the desert were her dad, Tyler, Drew, and Dalton, and they were all pointing guns at Stephanie.
“Get out of the way, Mandy,” Tyler commanded as he walked towards where they stood wit
h his gun drawn.
Meredith watched her husband, worried. She hadn’t seen the look in his eyes in a long time. She hated that he had been pushed to this point, hated that either of them were in this situation. How many times in their lives would they have to defend themselves? How many times would they have to fight for one another?
“Get in the bedroom,” he ordered the women. “You don’t need to be out here for this. Grab Addie and go.”
Glancing back, Meredith saw that Stephanie still hadn’t dropped her weapon. “If you hurt him, I will end you,” she told her, venom in her own eyes. There was no way she was going to let something happen to their family now that they had finally found one another and they were getting everything they always wanted.
When the women were finally in the other room, Tyler smiled at Stephanie. “I eat bitches like you for breakfast. You think you’re gonna come in my house and hurt my family? You’ve got a whole hell of a lot more coming your way.”
“You talk a huge game with a gun in your hand,” she taunted him.
Tyler clicked on the safety and dropped the gun, a smile on his face. “I don’t need a gun to talk any kind of game for me. You put yours down, and we’ll go at it skin on skin. I’m not too good to hit a lady.”
“And I’m not too good to hit a redskin,” she taunted him right back.
He almost flinched. It had been a lifetime since he’d been called that particular name. At one time it wouldn’t have hurt, but now that he had been accepted so readily by the people around him, it did hurt. Shaking it off, he held his hands out to the side. “I’ll give you one free shot, and then I’m gonna kick your ass,” he told her, leaning forward so she could get a good, clean shot.
Stephanie took the opportunity and hit him for all she was worth, wincing when her hand cracked. Her heart sped up when she realized Tyler hadn’t even moved an inch.
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